New Report Says UVA Rape Story Was All a Big Catfishing Scheme

Just when we thought the Rolling Stone-University of Virginia situation couldn’t get worse, it turns out the entire 9,000-word article seems to have resulted from one student’s unrequited romantic feelings toward one of her friends. The disastrous cover story recounted a college student, identified as "Jackie," being sexually assaulted by seven men during a hazing ritual at one of UVA’s fraternities. However, because there was virtually no evidence that the rape actually occurred — and neither writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely nor the editorial staff at Rolling Stone fact-checked the piece's veracity — the story was quickly discounted, and cited by Columbia Journalism Review as one of the worst pieces of journalism of 2014. (Note: Rolling Stone asked the dean of Columbia University's Journalism School, Steve Coll, to investigate what went wrong in their reporting after the magazine was forced to retract the article when other publications, most notably The Washington Post, exposed glaring inconsistencies in the piece.) There have since been three defamation suits filed against Rolling Stone, including one by UVA associate dean Nicole Eramo, whose suit exposed the latest news out of this bizarre and damaging story.

In a new report by [The Washington Post], Eramo’s defamation suit contains a series of text messages between one of Jackie’s friends, and "Haven Monahan," the supposed instigator of the attack and a UVA junior, who we now know doesn’t exist. For a while, however, it seemed like the story was an “embellishment” of an actual rape that had occurred. But now, evidence suggests that the story was entirely fabricated in an attempt to “catfish” a friend of Jackie's, Ryan Duffin, with whom she was infatuated.

Jackie claimed “Haven” was in her chemistry class, and convinced her friend Ryan to start texting him. In their exchanges, “Haven” described his feelings for Jackie, and according to the Washington Post, “All available evidence demonstrates that ‘Haven Monahan’ was a fake suitor created by Jackie in a strange bid to earn the affections of a student named Ryan Duffin that Jackie was romantically interested in.” "Haven" even told Ryan that Jackie was suffering from a terminal illness, which Jackie reportedly later confirmed to Ryan. It is believed that Jackie then made up her assault as a way to get attention from Ryan, and when Rolling Stone's reporter, Sabrina, came to the school looking for a victim's story to tell, Jackie volunteered her tale.

This weird turn of events sounds more like a plot twist from Pretty Little Liars than real life. But what’s most disturbing about this new development is that it'll most likely perpetuate the misconception that women falsify accusations of rape, and put brave women who come forward to report their assaults under a harsher spotlight. Studies show that 1 in 4 college women will be sexually assaulted during her four years at college; and only 32% of rapes are reported to police. A 2010 study showed that only approximately 5.9% of rape accusations are falsified, but as Jackie's story went viral, many will probably believe that figure is much higher, or refer to her case when questioning reported rapes. Even when people report their sexual assault, it's still incredibly hard to bring their alleged assailants to justice — only 2% of rapists ever serve time in prison. That's why this new news of Jackie's actions is so disturbing. We should be providing safe havens for women to come forward after suffering from sexual assault, not making it harder for their stories to be deemed credible.

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Still, as a college student, Jackie can't be entirely blamed for this catastrophe. As Ryan told the Washington Post, if anyone at Rolling Stone had ever bothered to contact him, he could have told his side of what happened, and most likely stopped this fabricated story from going to print.